BlackBerry Gets MLK Day Gift in Toronto Trading

It is always interesting to see what happens on ADR trading in the home markets when U.S. stock markets are closed. Martin Luther King Day brings a closure of the U.S. markets, but all other major global markets and exchanges are open for normal trading. At least it is considered normal, but without the liquidity of U.S. market participants in their local exchanges.

BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) already had a great Friday in New York trading. Its shares gained just over 6% to $9.08, based on Citron Research putting out a change of sentiment report. Usually that report is negative and better known for short selling candidates, but the publication called out that things have reversed and that the company formerly known as Research In Motion could see its shares rise to at least $15.

Many U.S. investors forget that BlackBerry is Canadian, and its home market is the Toronto Stock Exchange. Its shares rose 6.5% to C$9.98 in Toronto on Friday (versus $9.08 close in New York). Shares were up 15% in Toronto trading on Monday’s mid-morning session to C$11.50. On a static basis, this would equate to a BlackBerry price of close to $10.46 in New York for Tuesday. Again, static means assuming no further changes — and markets do tend to change.

A driver for the gains on Monday in Toronto is a Seeking Alpha article calling for now at least $17 for BlackBerry. We will leave the judgment of that article up to you. After all, the author’s “disclosure” in the article says “I am long BlackBerry” right up front.

Regardless of what is happening, Fairfax now has a far better buy on its hands for the value of the stake it owns. The group’s $9.00 buyout offer that went into fumes is now far under the current share price.

BlackBerry also still has more than 107 million shares in the short interest, according to the Nasdaq short interest report from December 31. That is down from a peak of more than 167 million shares short in mid-November, but it is still a massive number of shares that have to be covered if this stock rally really starts to get out of hand.

U.S. markets being closed does not mean that the community of Waterloo in Canada did not get to breathe a bit easier on Monday.